WCA July 2015

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20 Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2015
Industrynews
PRYSMIAN Group is leading a
consortium of seven companies for the
realisation of the new high voltage
direct current (HVDC) interconnection
between Italy and France.
The total value of this project, awarded
by Terna Rete Italia SpA and RTE,
the transmission system operators in
Italy and France, is worth more than
€500m.
The share of Prysmian that, in its
capacity as the consortium leader, will
coordinate the design, supply,
installation – including civil works – and
commissioning of the interconnection
is about €200m.
“We are proud to make our
technologies and our experience
available to the realisation of a project
with such a high strategic value,” said
Valerio Battista, Prysmian Group CEO.
“The development of power
transmission interconnections is of
paramount importance in Europe
and Prysmian is a key player. As a
matter of fact, we are in the final
stages of the HVDC interconnection
between France and Spain that will
start operations by the first half of
2015,” he added.
The underground HVDC cable project,
known also as the “Piemonte-Savoia”
interconnection, will play a strategic
role in increasing the security of
power supply and enabling energy
exchange between Italy and France up
to 1,200MW, as a new and important
step towards the creation of a single
European energy market.
The project consists of a ±320 kV
extruded HVDC underground cable
turnkey system that includes the
engineering, production and instal-
lation of two 600MW bipolar circuits
along a 190km land route between the
substations of Piossasco, near Turin,
Italy, and Grand’Ile in Savoy, France,
with a total of approximately 95km in
each country.
Prysmian and Silec Cable will provide
the HVDC underground cables
insulated with extruded material
technology; Roda SpA and CEBAT Srl
will provide civil works and installation
on the Italian side; and Gauthey,
Serpollet and Sobeca will provide civil
works and installation on the French
side.
Commissioning is scheduled for 2019.
The overall length of the link is the
longest of its type and sets a world
record for HVDC underground
interconnections using extruded cable
technology.
The group has also recently announced
the commissioning and hand over
of the first and the second HVDC
offshore grid connections (BorWin2 and
HelWin1).
A further two DC offshore grid
connection projects, SylWin1 and
HelWin2, and the DC land section of
Skagerrak 4 are nearing completion.
Prysmian is currently also implementing
also the HVDC cable systems for the
DolWin3 and BorWin3 projects.
Prysmian – Italy
Website:
Single European energy market a step closer
In an effort to consolidate an IT infrastructure that was
dispersed throughout its campus, the University of
Montana, USA, has completed the installation of its legacy
servers and storage devices within the Data Center on
Demand™ modular data centre solution from CommScope.
The IT portfolio is now online and serving the university
within its new high-efficiency, purpose-built data centre
solution.
From its initial planning in 2014 to the time it became fully
operational, the Data Center on Demand solution was
completed in less than nine months – significantly faster
than the time required to plan, design and build a traditional
bricks-and-mortar facility.
The actual production and deployment of the unit itself took
less than 20 weeks. Coupled with recent virtualisation
initiatives, the university’s modular data centre has a built-in
migration path with several available racks for future
integration of outlying legacy systems.
“This new data centre further strengthens our network and
IT infrastructure with the best technology available,” said
Tony Jablonski, assistant chief information officer at the
University of Montana. “We are now in a position to
consolidate about one-third of our 23 modest-sized data
centres, which were scattered across our campus, into a
single unit. We have already begun that process with great
success. CommScope’s advanced infrastructure solutions
are highly reliable and we had a great experience working
with them on this project.
“We have a significant responsibility to provide our faculty
and students with a secure, efficient and dependable
service when managing their information. Now that most of
our data centre technology is operating within the Data
Center on Demand modular solution, I can sleep better at
night.”
The purpose-built Data Center on Demand at the University
of Montana includes:
• SmartAir evaporative cooling with self-regulating
adiabatic temperature controls
• 16 server racks running 20 kilowatts each
• Backup power through battery and diesel generators
• Redundant universal power supply units
“Many organisations face the same challenges as the
University of Montana when trying to consolidate their IT
infrastructure with very little budget or real estate,” said
Kevin St Cyr, senior vice president of enterprise solutions,
CommScope. “The Data Center on Demand solution was
the perfect fit to quickly bring all of their legacy systems into
one efficient modular unit that still has room to grow.”
CommScope Inc – USA
Website:
University’s IT boost thanks to CommScope